


Into the Flood

by KrisseyCrystal (IceCreAMS)



Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: Campfires, Family Feels, Fluff, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Sleeping Under The Stars, just fluffy good feelings, pffft, that's all this is by the way, the sormik is there if you squint rly, tozanniversary, y'know how it is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-01-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:08:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22369225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IceCreAMS/pseuds/KrisseyCrystal
Summary: “Y’know, most people--normal people,” Rose murmurs, “can’t sleep because of nightmares.”The smile on Sorey’s face widens. “Not just because they’re too happy?”
Relationships: Mikleo/Sorey (Tales of Zestiria)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 58





	Into the Flood

**Author's Note:**

> I had the ABSOLUTE DELIGHT and HONOR to be part of the ToZ 5th Anniversary Mini-Zine! It's absolutely free, by the way! Go check it out on twitter/tumblr @tozanniversary if you'd like to see it! Lots of BEAUTIFUL fanart and REALLY WONDERFUL fanfics!
> 
> And let me tell you: it was a joy to come back to these characters again. I hadn't realized how much I missed writing them.
> 
> Title is thanks to Fran's ever-thoughtful suggestions: a song by Anaria by the same title. Listen to it, if you'd like! It's a really great jam!

For all the lively noise, conversation, and warm food that had passed through so many hands earlier, the camp is quiet now. The fire burns low. The embers glow in memory of warm tones of sunset. Crickets chirp. Grasshoppers sing. Best yet: in the vast plains of the Pearloats Pasture, there’s not a single tree to block out the starry, velvet sky.

“Y’know, most people-- _ normal _ people,” Rose murmurs, “can’t sleep because of nightmares.”

The smile on Sorey’s face widens. “Not just because they’re too happy?” There’s a laugh bubbled high in his chest in danger of slipping free. Sorey slowly rolls onto his side. His ungloved hand curls at his cheek in the grass under his pillow. “Sorry. Am I keeping you up?”

“Hardly.” Rose’s scoff is muffled. She turns her head and her red hair splays out around her head. “You aren’t making a sound.” 

Sorey smiles. Rose smiles back.

After a long stretch of silence, she sighs. “I didn’t know it was possible.”

“What is?”

“Being this happy.” Rose averts her eyes. In the dying campfire, they darken, richen. Become something almost purple in their hue. “It feels so good, like it should be stupid or something.” 

“In what world could happiness be stupid?”

Rose scoffs. “I already sound like Edna! Now you’re making me  _ that  _ person?”

“What person?”

“Does he always do this?”

“Play innocent when it conveniences him?” Mikleo’s voice rises up from another sleeping bag on the other side of Sorey. “Oh, constantly.”

“What? What is this? Are you ganging up on me? Is that what this is?”

Rose has to stuff her face into her pillow. Her shoulders shake with her wild, barely-muffled laughter. Mikleo snorts with one hand pressed to his mouth. There’s an amused breath from Dezel somewhere close. Lailah giggles. 

“Could you idiots  _ please  _ shut up? Some of us are trying to get our beauty sleep.”

“Says one of us who doesn’t actually need sleep.”

“Oh, look. It’s the pot calling the kettle black.”

Mikleo kicks the bedroll next to his. Edna gives a soft gasp and the next thing Sorey knows, there’s a sharp shift of earth--rock juts up from the ground next to him--and a lapful of a squawking Mikleo has been gracelessly sprawled over him, sleeping bag askew. 

“Edna!” Mikleo shrieks, holding himself up above Sorey at a safe distance with an arm on either side of the Shepherd’s red, red face.

“You started it.”

“That was uncalled for!”

“And kicking a poor, defenseless little girl wasn’t?”

“Defenseless?!”

Rose is laughing in earnest now. She’s bent over in her sleeping sack, both arms wrapped around her middle. “Stop! Stop it; you’re gonna break me!”

Mikleo huffs. He rolls off of Sorey and apologizes quietly. Sorey mumbles back that it’s fine; is he okay? Mikleo nods and murmurs something in return but Rose is guffawing too loudly for Sorey to make out the words. Instead, he tries to ignore how warm his face has become. Is his blush obvious under the light of dim embers?

Sorey is still staring up at the stars by the time tranquil night finally hushes over them once more.

“I think,” Rose begins, her voice much quieter; more subdued, “the reason it feels stupid to be this happy, why I’m so apprehensive about it all, is because it makes me afraid for things I shouldn’t be afraid of. Like tomorrow.”

“What’s happening tomorrow?”

“Pendrago.” Rose snorts again like she’s made some sort of joke, but she’s the only one who finds the humor in it. She shakes her head and adds, “I don’t know. But that’s the thing: no one knows. Maybe tomorrow will be just as great as today and I’ll have a blast again. Or maybe something truly awful will happen that’ll change everything. It could go either way and now, because I’m so, so happy, I’m afraid of its inevitable end. And I never used to be. That’s silly, right?”

“I don’t think fear is silly.”

“It feels silly.”

Sorey thinks of tiny earth seraphs using their powers purely cosmetically to exact petty revenge on unsuspecting water seraphs and chuckles. “I think we  _ are  _ a little silly.”

“Touché.” 

“But maybe that’s okay, y’know?” Sorey pulls both hands from his chest and spreads them out to either side of himself. With one, he takes Rose’s. With the other, he takes Mikleo’s. He gives both hands a tight squeeze. “Mikleo and I said this once before, but there’s a sky up there filled with as many stars as there are emotions. And if part of our journey is to experience every one, doesn’t that include the bad ones, too?”

Rose hums. 

“So it’s okay to be afraid. We know the bad days are coming.” Sorey breathes once, as long and deep as he can. He feels his lungs swell with the crisp, night air. He tastes the open sky. Maybe a star or two. He closes his eyes. “But maybe if we’re all together, we can face whatever those bad experiences have to be. They don’t have to be so scary, then. Y’know?”

“All together, huh?”

Without dislodging her hand from Sorey’s, Rose rolls onto her side. She peers at the small circle of sleeping bags they have made around the dead campfire. Lailah kneels on the other side of the ashen kindle; Dezel stands to the side, ever the attentive guard. 

“And to think,” Rose murmurs, “that just a few months ago, I would have panicked at the idea that I’m in the company of spirits.”

“Look how far you’ve come.” Sorey’s voice is warm.

Rose squeezes his hand and nods. She thinks about the comfort their little circle of sleep gives her. She thinks about how she can sleep easier when they are around. She thinks of the power of the spirits and the trials they’ve overcome to get here, to the place and time with the abilities they need to have a chance against the Lord of Calamity.

“Look at how far we’ve all come,” she hums instead and Sorey squeezes her hand and doesn’t disagree.


End file.
